Jewish Elements in Hans Christian Andersen's Writings

Erik Dal

(summary for pages 444-52)

Exceptionally, anti-semitic riots took place in Copenhagen on the
very day in 1819 when the fourteen-year-old Hans Christian Andersen
arrived in the capital. Otherwise, Danish Jews lived under tolerable
conditions, and by the Constitution of 1849 they, like other
minorities, gained full civil rights.

In Andersen's literary production, three novels, one story among
the Fairy Tales and Stories, and the verse drama Ahasuerus are
the main examples of his interest in Jewish themes and people. During
his lifetime, and especially in his later years, distinguished Jewish
families in Copenhagen were among his closest friends.

Only a Fiddler, 1837, like works by other writers of
that decade, broke with a literary tradition ridiculing Jews. In the
novel, Andersen opposes two persons from a minor town: the exotic Naomi
and the poor Christian. Christian's musical talent never leads to
anything remarkable, while Naomi becomes an international lady of
fashion, married into the nobility. But she remains rootless and
unhappy, a Byronic passionate type, and a wanderer. The fact that she
is Jewish is not emphasized.

The Jewish Girl, 1855, is a story about Sara, a poor
servant girl who necessarily hears about Christianity at school and
from her mistress. She acquires the conviction that God has acted
through his Son, but she does not convert, because her father promised
her dying mother that she should never leave their faith. She is buried
outside the churchyard but the words of resurrection are heard also
there. Andersen balances tactfully between his own faith and the
respect for the faith and the promise described.

To be or not to be, 1857, opposes the young Niels
Bryde who loses the faith of his childhood, and the Jewish Esther who
reads the holy books of all religions and converts but dies young. The
loss brings Niels back to his belief in immortality. The author goes
into the contemporary discussion about materialism and science versus
traditional faith, and Esther, like the Jewish maid Sara, are examples
of the conflict.

Lucky Peter, 1870, is Andersen's late novel about
a boy whose musical talents lead to the first performance of his own
opera with himself in the title part: Aladdin, after which he dies
during the applause. Towards the end of this short novel it turns out
that the singing master who promotes Peter is a Jew, and he quotes
proverbs from Talmud. His Jewishness has no artistic function and can
only be seen as an expression of Andersen's feelings for Jews of
high human quality.

Scattered examples from other writings and from the voluminous
diaries of Andersen are mentioned.

Ahasuerus was published in 1847 but had occupied its
author for years, and part of it had been printed earlier. It is a work
of extraordinary ambition but - not without reason - had little
afterlife and few readers. Andersen follows The Wandering Jew Ahasuerus
from his own time and that of Jesus through historical periods and past
main figures in history, until he lands in America with Columbus! The
work combines the writer's curiosity when faced with historical
events and places and his respect for the wanderer and for some of his
antagonists; but basically it displays the solidarity of the lonely man
and untiring traveller, Andersen, with the damned figure from
legend.

In Andersen's faith, Providence and Grace are predominant,
Perdition and Immortality less clear. But immortality is able to
balance what remains unbalanced in this world. In a late draft of a
Hymn to Christ he says, however, that Christ did not want to demolish
the Law and the Prophets; the old Jewish religion should emanate from
the power and the love of God.

Though not central in Andersen's literary output Jewish
people and problems are of importance in several works. He always shows
respect. But the theme is, after all, more of a poetic than of a
religious nature, though he struggled with the concept of
Immortality.

Note

Rambam, Tidsskrift for jødisk kultur og forskning,
No. 31, Copenhagen 1991, includes a paper written in Danish by the
American scholar, Prof. Dr. Bruce H. Kirmmse, about The Jewish
Girl, or, as he prefers, The Jew-Girl, with a derogatory
implication. He characterizes Andersen's attitude as one of
condescending ('nedladende') tolerance, and, finding the story
offensive he fails to understand that Andersen was considered
philosemitic in his own time, as demonstrated once when he mediated
between Jewish friends and a non-Jewish friend who had written plainly
anti-semitic remarks in a review. He analyzes the trend of the epoch
also mentioned above; the tension between romantic and scientific views
of Nature and the opposition of Faith versus Knowledge. Such
ambiguities are felt behind Andersen's attitude to the problems
here discussed, and Bruce Kirmmse considers it typical though Andersen
was, personally, neither anti-semitic nor anti-scientific, on the
contrary deeply committed to technical progress.

I am most grateful to Mr. Ulf Haxen, Head of the
internationally renowned Judaic Department of the Royal Library in
Copenhagen, for enabling Prof. Kirmmse and me to include
cross-references to our papers in due course. It goes without saying
that we consider certain things in different ways, but also that Prof.
Kirmmse is able to develop a much fuller discussion, dealing with just
one short story.